It's always fun to see families ministering together. And I know that I enjoy having the opportunity to sing with my children. And I know that Brother Chuck enjoys that also. And Marilee probably enjoys it as well. And thank the Lord for their willingness to do so. If you have your Bible tonight, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And as we approach the Lord's table and celebrate communion together, I think it's appropriate for us to go to the passage where Paul instructed the church at Corinth concerning the order for the Lord's Supper. And I want to bring a message to you titled simply, Communion Considerations. Communion Considerations. And as we consider communion tonight, let us begin looking in verse number 23, and we'll read the end of the chapter together. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another, and if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together under condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come." May we pray together. Our Heavenly Father, as we come to the Lord's table tonight, I pray that we might look fully upon the Lord Jesus Christ and consider Him who has redeemed us, not with corruptible things, but with the incorruptible blood of God. Lord, I pray that You would draw us into a deeper intimacy with You tonight because of this service. For we pray and ask these things in the wonderful name of Jesus our Savior, Amen. I can remember growing up as a youngster in a pastor's home, sitting through many communion services. Now, as I was growing up, we always, in my younger days, had communion in the evening service. We never had it in the morning services. It was always in the evening service. So I wasn't in children's church when they had it. I was in big church sitting next to my mother every time we had the Lord's Supper. Up until I was much older, we never had it on a Sunday morning. And then we changed it again after we went to kind of a more denominational church that was a little more ritualistic. We put it back to Sunday evening. It was a little more it was a little easier to maintain the integrity of the of the table when you commemorated it in the evening service for a number of reasons, which I'll share with you. But I can recall that There was a particular Sunday evening I was sitting next to my mother, and I remember it as if it were yesterday, that they were passing the juice, and I wanted to receive communion. And I must have been seven years of age, almost eight, and my mother would not let me receive communion. And I was trying to understand why I couldn't, and I was a little upset, and I'm shaking my mom like this while she was holding the grape juice over a white skirt. Do you remember this, Mom? And I got that juice all over her white skirt. And so after the communion service, I think she took me out by the earlobe and took me into the women's bathroom, took my belt off me and wore me out, you know, and made me wish that I had done that. But, you know, that whole event caused me to wonder what in the world is this thing all about that people are so selective that some people can receive it and some people can't. And it really got my heart to searching. And when I was told, you're not saved yet, you have not yet received Jesus as your Savior, you don't comprehend this, I wanted to come to a place where I understood it. I wanted to discern the Lord's body, and I wanted to be a suitable candidate to be a participant in the communion of the Lord's table. Now, I don't presume to know where every person in this room is tonight in their walk with the Lord, but I am going to tell you that there are certain things that prohibit us from having what might be known as an open communion service. An open communion service says, y'all come, anybody that wants to take it, have at it. And the Bible clearly teaches that that should never be the case. And I'm going to share some of these with you as we go through the Scripture tonight. And I want you to, first of all, have us go together as we point number one, consider your Redeemer, consider your Redeemer. This is a time when we're to consider a number of things. But Paul wrote in verse twenty three, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. It is imperative for us, for just a moment, to recognize the fact that the instruction that we have here did not come from a man. It came from God. Paul wrote and said, I received these things of the Lord. It was God that gave it to him. And though Paul was not there at the Last Supper, as it were, The Lord Himself revealed to him the order for the supper, and somehow Paul understood, perhaps supernaturally so, that it was on the very night that Jesus was betrayed that he instituted the greatest illustration in all of the world of love and forgiveness. It's interesting to me that we come to the table and sometimes we deal with it so ritualistically and so liturgically that we forget that it is about a relationship between us and the Savior. And sometimes we need to take the pie out of the sky, so to speak, and bring it down to earth and understand that this relates to our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I think about what the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse number 32. It says, And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." And you might say, well, Pastor, what does that have to do with anything? You're kind of jumping all around. Does that make any sense? It has everything to do with what we're talking about right now, because as we consider our Redeemer, we see here that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. The night when He was in the greatest upheaval and struggle of his 33 1⁄2 years, and a man who called him Lord for 3 1⁄2 years, his entire ministry betrayed him. He instituted the greatest illustration that there was. of love and forgiveness. And friends, I want to tell you tonight that if the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered at the hands of cruel men, who was knifed in the back by someone that called Him Lord, could forgive, then who are we not to forgive? And so as we look at the Redeemer, we understood that He has come to redeem us from the curse of the law, to redeem us from sin, and to deliver us from this present evil world. And we need to recognize the fact that you and I are responsible for placing the Redeemer on the cross. As we come to commemorate the Lord's table, it's one thing to praise God for what He did at Calvary, and we're going to do that. But I think that we would do well to understand that it was your sin and my sin that was laid on Jesus that He had to go to the cross to pay for. So, in a very real sense, we are responsible. Sometimes we would like to pass it off on the Jews. But do you know, there's neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ, and it was the sin of all mankind that brought about the need for a Savior. First of all, there wasn't Jew or Gentile in the Garden. not until God made a promise to Abraham. And He said, I'll bless your seed, and in you should all the nations of the earth be blessed. So friend, the fall of Adam brought about a chain of events that doomed us to hell, and it was our sin that was laid on Jesus. So while we're praising the Lord for what He did for us on Calvary, let's remember that we're responsible for that death. I think one of the things that strikes me as I look at our post-modern Christian culture today, is that we want veggie-tails Christianity. We want a kind of watered-down... You know, Timothy watches veggie-tails every once in a while, and I'll go and I'll watch with him. But you know, I would almost rather stay away from trying to tell the Bible stories with vegetables. Now, my kids, When they watch VeggieTales, they resemble vegetables. Sometimes they may even drool on themselves. You know what I'm saying? And the reason why I say that is because they always dilute the truth of it. They always, and I say that emphatically, they always change the emphatic truth of it to make it palatable to children. They try to make some character lesson or story out of something that has to do with the redemption of mankind. And I think it's easier for us to look at something like that and to go away happy about the VeggieTales accounting of Joseph or of Moses or of Jonah or some other great accounting of events in the Scripture And we don't have to deal with certain things. Let me give you an example. We heard so much to do over the passion of Christ when Mel Gibson made the movie. And many of you here tonight have seen that movie and how profoundly emotionally shaking and spiritually moving it was to many people. But the thing that struck me personally as I saw that thing was that The Lord did this for me. But what was not communicated in that movie was that He went there because of me. That was not communicated. Now, somewhere, maybe in the Latin, they might have said it, but nobody understood it. But He went there, so there was no confrontation with the reality that our sin had separated us from a holy God. Only that a holy God went there. And as we consider the Redeemer tonight, we recognize that on the very night He was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, Take, eat, this is My body which is broken for you. this due and remembrance of Me. I want to say that as we consider our Redeemer, we have to consider that He is absolutely and entirely holy. If we were to take the time tonight, and we do not have the time to do so, but to go back to chapter 10 and take a running start at all the instruction concerning the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Supper mandates that there be separation from those doctrines that are contrary to Jesus Christ, the pure and holy Redeemer and him alone, because the Bible tells us that you cannot take the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils at the same time. Which, by the way, I'm going to tell you, and I'm just I saw a rabbit jump up and I better shoot it before it gets away. That's one of the reasons why we don't send our ladies to the Women of Grace conferences that are hosted by ecumenical groups, and we don't send our men to the Promise Keeper movement, which is an ecumenical movement. The reason being is communion is meant as an ordinance of the church. The church is comprised only and exclusively of regenerate people. Now, I'll have you know that there are many people that will go fill up America West Arena or go over and fill up the Glendale Arena to hear Jack Hayford stand up and preach to 50,000 men, and I am all for men being men of their word. I'm all for many of the things which they promote. I'm not trying to say that I'm against it. But the thing that is violative clearly of Scripture is to get together and to participate in an ordinance that was delivered to the church that celebrates the redemption of mankind in holiness and to receive communion that may be served by someone that is not saved at all. sitting down and communing together with those that are believing in a works salvation, or believing somehow that once saved, that it is up to them to withstand the temptations of Satan to keep from sinning in order to stay saved, which is essentially a works salvation. And I want you to know that if we're trusting in our works in order to get us to heaven, we are not a candidate for communion. And if we go together into a group that we know has infidels and we sit there and we bless that, then we have not discerned the Lord's body. And in chapter 10, the Lord's body spoken of is not the bread and the juice. It is the church of Jesus Christ, which is the body. And in fact, I'm going to share that with you. If you don't believe me, I want you to see it. Chapter 10. OK, verse number 16, the cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break? It is not. Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? It doesn't say the blood. It doesn't say the body. It says the communion of the blood. The communion of the body, it doesn't say the body. So we're not blessing, as it were, these things like they would in a Catholic type of the ceremony. But verse 17, for we who's we? The church is what he's referring to. We being many are one bread. That sounds a lot like chapter 12 when he talks about the body of Jesus Christ, does it not? So we being many are one bread and one body. Who's he talking about? It's talking about the church. All right. For we are all partakers of that one bread. So right there, he's giving a clear instruction concerning those that are candidates for the communion of the body and the communion of the blood, and that is those who have partaken of that bread, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, spiritually. Because it is a spiritual body, it's not partaking of it physically. And there are those today that believe that when you receive the wafer, when you receive the juice, that it becomes a literal body and the literal blood of Jesus Christ. And this scripture repudiates that teaching. It is a spiritual body and it refers to the church. And then look on, it says, Behold, Israel after the flesh, are they not they which eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar? What say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table. and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? Friends, do we wound the Lord? No, we're not stronger than Him. We can't wound the One who is stronger than we are, but we can be an offense in the way that we receive this. And if you've been in our Wednesday evening services, you've heard a tremendous amount of teaching concerning the groves and how that God said to his people, I am a jealous God. I want you to be separated unto me. And he's interested in our holiness. And I want you to know that that's not something that we can manufacture. He imputes holiness to us. But now he wants us to be separated from the things of the world unto Him and Him alone. And so as we consider the Redeemer, we understand this, that we are not going to amalgamate the things of the world and the things that this post-modern Christian culture try to ascribe to a ceremony or a ritual and try to put that all together and make it be what the Bible teaches. We have to understand that God is above all else a holy God. The word in the Hebrew is Jehovah Sidkenu, which means the Lord our righteousness. And because He is righteous, He had to go to the cross. Friends, today I tell you the Bible says in Romans chapter 3 and all through the epistles that Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness. He had to satisfy the righteous demands of a holy law, or we would have not a prayer of heaven. Do you understand that? And so when the Lord came, He couldn't just turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to sin and say, well, let's let bygones be bygones, and I wrote the rules, and so I'm just going to let you all off the hook. No, because He said even in the Old Testament, and I mentioned it earlier, false balances and abomination. You can't have a sliding scale of justice with God. There are some absolutes, which is what our society is trying to get away from today. God is an absolutely holy God, and there can't be any give in that, because He said, I am the Lord, I change not. The Bible tells us that of His own will began He asked for the word of truth. It says that There in James chapter 1, that every good and every perfect gift is from above and coming down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. So the Lord doesn't vary here or there or give concessions to one and not another because the Bible tells us many times that there is no respect of persons with God. And so God is truly just, He is truly holy, and because the Bible said, the soul that sinneth it shall surely die, the Lord had to come and shed blood so that we might be saved, and His blood had to be the perfect and holy blood Friends, tonight I'm going to tell you this, that Jesus Christ was born of the seed of the Holy Spirit of God that was conceived in the womb of a virgin. He did not proceed forth from the gene pool of a wicked, sinful, Adamic man. I want you to understand that He came as the very Son of God, and as such, His blood was not tainted by sin. You and I have inherited a sinful nature from Adam, and so as we come to the table and we consider our Redeemer, we know that the Bible says in 1 Peter 1, for as much as you know that you're not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold from your vain conversation, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ as a lamb without spot or without blemish. I'm redeemed with the precious blood Jesus Christ and the Bible says there in the next chapter and you therefore which believe he is precious and and we who count the Lord to be precious need to understand as we consider our Redeemer he was holy in every way how do you know that the Bible tells us that we have not in high priest in Hebrews chapter 4 which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points of tempted like as we are, and yet without sin. He was absolutely perfect and absolutely holy, and we must believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth, because that is hand in hand together with the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ, And we have to believe in that or there is no salvation. For Jesus told the Jews in John chapter 8, except you believe that I am He, meaning God, you shall die in your sins. Friends, tonight, when we come and receive the juice, which is juice, it is a symbol of the pure and holy, perfect blood of God, which alone had to be shed to satisfy the demands of His own holiness, because He could not deny who He is. so that we might be saved. And so as we partake of the juice, it's juice and it's not wine. A lot of people say, well, you know, my old church, we used to drink wine at communion. Well, I got to tell you, they whoever is serving up the wine doesn't discern the Lord's body. They're not discerning it. You know why? The very same reason why. If you hack off a hunk of a French, a loaf of French bread and use that for the bread like they used to do in the 70s commonly. Some of you probably remember sitting around the circle singing Kumbaya and passing around a loaf of bread and taking a swig of whatever it was, Boone's Farm or Ripple or I don't know, whatever it was that you were passing around and taking communion doing. But I'm going to tell you, it has to be juice because if it's wine, it's corrupted. All of us that have half a pea brain in this culture know that wine is rotten grape juice. And there was nothing corrupted about the blood of God. It was perfect and pure and holy. If you read the book, The Chemistry of the Blood, written by Dr. M. R. DeHaan, you're going to understand that in order for juice to become wine, it goes through a process called leavening. And when it turns within itself and it becomes red, it corrupts. That's what happens when it leavens. And leaven in the Bible is always a type of sin. And so as we consider our Redeemer, we know that He is sinless. And as we commemorate His blood and participate in the communion of His blood, we have to know that it was pure and holy and spotless and sinless, uncorrupted by human seed. So consider your Redeemer, apart from which there is no redemption, there is no deliverance, there is no salvation, Remember, you're responsible for placing Him there, and He's responsible for delivering you from this present evil world and for the consequences and the wages of your sin. Praise the Lord for that. Amen. You know, God is so holy, He couldn't compromise His holiness to save even one person. Or He's not God. Did you know that? Do you think God's interested in holiness, yes or no? We could talk about the divine attributes of the Lord tonight. We could talk about His moral attributes. And we could go through all of those things that make Him God. But perhaps the most overwhelming attribute of our God is His holiness. His holiness. And if God couldn't compromise His holiness to save even one person, where does the church get the license to compromise the holiness of God to try to do outreach. I realize we don't establish our own righteousness, but since when can we be violative of God's perfect truth in order to give the message? Let me give you an example. And I know this is turning a short sermon into a long sermon. That's OK. We're learning something tonight, aren't we? Last Monday, I drove the kids to the airport and they missed their flight and they were waiting to see if they're going to get on the next flight. And so I drove to Starbucks and I was going to wait, not drive all the way home in case I had to go back to the airport and pick them up. So I ordered my coffee and I sat down at the table and I was calling back and forth to Rachel to see if they were going to get on the flight and so forth. And there was a lady seated at the table next to me there in the lounge in Starbucks. And she struck up a conversation. She said, I'm not from here. I'm from from California. I'm a schoolteacher. I teach in Glendale and so forth. And and she heard me talking on the phone. She said, Are you a Christian? I said, Yes, I am. She said, What do you do? I said, I'm the pastor of Freeway Baptist Church. And she said, I'm so distressed. And I said, Well, why are you distressed? She said, Well, last night I She said, I went to my church, I go to this nameless church over on Happy Valley and 67th Avenue and everybody has a sticker in the back window. She said, I go to this big church and she said, I've been so desperately lonely for fellowship. And she said, I just wanted to meet somebody. I just want to be around people. And she said, I went to a dance. This church hosted a valley wide Christian singles dance. She said there were hundreds and hundreds of singles that went there to dance. And she said, I thought I would go there and find some friendship where I could be around other Christians and have some fellowship. And she said, I'm so upset today. I'm vexed in my spirit. And she had tears in her eyes. She said, I went there and she said, I had men that were hitting on me, making passes at me. She said it was nothing more than a carnal way for couples to hook up. And she said, I thought, why in the world would a church do this? She said, they didn't even play Christian music. It was just rock music. She said, maybe every 20th song that I heard was something that had to do with the Lord. But she said, I got so upset by all that was happening around me, guys handing me their cards with their numbers and messages written on it, that I had to leave. And she said, I just wondered why a church would do that. And I shared with her about the holiness of our God and how that the church has a responsibility to do God's work in God's way. And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 that it is good for a man not to touch a woman. I said, did they have single slow dancing? And she said, oh yeah, that was about most of what was going on there. And I said, well, you know, what business does the church have facilitating people to sin against God, the clear directives of God. It clearly teaches that a man and a woman don't have any business touching outside of the boundaries of marriage. And yet here is a church that created an opportunity for people to sin. You see, they justified it in the name of, we're going to give tracts out to everybody that comes and maybe we'll have an opportunity for evangelism. I want to tell you that if a holy God could not compromise His own holiness to save one person, then God's desire is not to compromise His holy work and His holy Word through an unholy vehicle. That's why I teach a separation in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Because we can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils all at the same time. Do you think I'm stretching this? I don't either. And in fact, if we went back to chapter 6 and worked our way forward, we could build an overwhelming case for this truth. Consider the holiness of our Redeemer who satisfied all the law once for all. And when He died, He said, It is finished. And He completed the work of redemption for you and for me. And when we appropriate that in our lives by faith, everything necessary to obtain our redemption was finished and done. And friends, I've got to tell you, there's nothing more that you need do to be acceptable to a holy God. You and I are made acceptable because of a perfect Redeemer who has imputed His own righteousness unto us and given us a standing of absolute purity and holiness, even as it says in Ephesians 1, verses 3-7, that we're holy and unblameable and unreprovable before Him in love. That is the standing that you and I have. Thank God tonight that you who were dead in trespasses and sins, hath He quickened and raised us up together and made us sit together with Him in the heavenly places that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding goodness of His grace toward us. For by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Praise the Lord tonight that we have been redeemed by the precious blood of a holy Redeemer. Secondly, tonight, and we'll hasten on. I'll not spend as much time with the rest of the points. I was having a whole lot of fun with point number one. You know, I just decided when I came to church tonight, I was going to have a good time. So if you don't have any fun, it's your own dumb fault. You may as well enjoy it. Amen? Secondly, tonight, consider your relationship. Consider your relationship. The Bible tells us here in 1 Corinthians 11, It says this in verse number 27. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthy shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. By the way, one of the things that would be an unworthy partaking of the communion of the body and blood of the Lord would be to somehow reason that that was efficacious. that somehow that imparted grace to us by the taking. That is a failure to discern the body and the blood of the Lord And that is an unworthy participation in the communion of the Lord. And so we recognize tonight that by the receiving of these, there is no grace imparted to us. That took place at Calvary, and we appropriated it at salvation. And there's no need for a progressive work of regeneration We do not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation which teaches that these things become the literal blood and the literal body of Jesus Christ. The Lord didn't come to do away with the law. The Bible says that He came to fulfill all the law and the prophets. And the law spoke clearly against cannibalism and the drinking of blood. And Jesus would not command His followers to do that which He forbade. So, anyway. Next point, it says this, verse 28, let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. In verse 31, if we would judge ourselves, I'm not a judge over any man. I'm the pastor, I'm not the judge. When I come in, they don't sing, here come the judge, do they? No. In fact, Brother George and I have talked about this. The only one that has the right to judge is perfect. And that counts all of us out. So the only thing that we can do is consider ourselves. Because we don't have a standing to try to judge or stand a judgment over anyone else. I don't know whether any of you are saved or not. I have my doubts about it. I'm teasing you, of course. All I know is, in my own heart, where I am in my relationship with the Lord, most times what we put out there in the public's eye is different than what is really true in our lives. And so as we come to the Lord's table, we recognize that this is an opportunity for us to consider our relationship with the Lord. This is the communion of the Lord. Certainly, as we come to this point and we recognize the forgiveness that is ours because we're responsible for laying Jesus on Calvary because of our sin, and we have no basis with which to withhold forgiveness from those that have offended us, it affects our relationship to the other members of the body which are partakers of that bread, the true bread, the manna from heaven I'm talking about. And so we have to consider our relationship with Jesus Christ, because no person in right relationship with Jesus Christ will refuse to offer forgiveness to their brother. Or there's a problem in the relationship with Jesus Christ. It's kind of like the Ten Commandments that were given were summed up by the Lord in two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. Love your neighbors as yourself. But if you say you love God and you hate your brother, you are a murderer. You're a liar. Because one affects the other. You've got to keep first things first. If I love God with all my heart, soul, and strength, loving my neighbor will come easy. So if I'm in right relationship as far as my walk, my position is set secure. Amen? That can't change. But my walk before God is in accordance with His Word, then guess what? I'm not going to have any trouble forgiving the person that has offended me. And so I look into my own heart and say, Lord, as I come to the greatest illustration that exists of forgiveness, how can I withhold that which you've given an unworthy person such as me? And we must consider that relationship, knowing that according to Colossians 127, the mystery is this, that Christ is in us, the hope of glory. He's in us, but praise the Lord, we are in Him. The Bible says in Colossians chapter number three, for we are dead in our life is hidden with Christ in God. We are in Christ and in Ephesians over and over again. We see that our position is in Christ. So I am in him and he is in me. And I have to consider that relationship with him and know that that relationship with him will ultimately produce something in that relationship that I have with others? It has to. And as we read back and see the instruction, Paul clearly points these things out. At times when I deal with these passages of Scripture, I have people that are a little uneasy about those verses. And I sometimes ask them, are you uneasy about the fact that God placed them in the Bible? Are you uneasy about the fact that I've read them to you? Though they're uneasy, they can't ever give an explanation of what in the world does it mean to examine yourself, to judge yourself. And the only answer I get sometimes from people is, well, that's legalism. No, it's not. It's practical Christianity. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in the Bible. I'm not saying you better check yourself out or you're going to go to hell or you're not going to be in standing with God. I said all we need to do is look in our own heart because nobody knows you better than you, except God. And as God works in your life and reveals things to you, then act upon it. That's considering your relationship with him. That's practical Christianity. It's a relationship. Amen. Today, I went home and I was sitting on the couch and I was mimicking my dad. I was being a little bit of a couch potato at that moment. And Timothy was misbehaving all around me and I was oblivious to it. And my wife was casting glances my direction. And at that particular moment, I had to consider myself. And you know, as I considered myself, I realized at that moment there were some things that I needed to get up and be about, like taking Timothy out and dealing with him. You know what? That's what you do in a relationship. You know, sometimes we try to make the relationship with the Lord so ethereal that there's no practicality to it. I'm not talking about we're going to put God in a box and it's going to be some science. No, but it's a relationship with a person named Jesus. And it's governed through the agency of the Holy Spirit of God. And so, lastly tonight, the Bible says this, in verse number 26, For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Lastly, consider the rapture. Consider the rapture. Remember, whenever we come to this point, Jesus is coming again. He's coming again. And with that in mind, that ought to add a sense of urgency to our message, a sense of urgency to the work of the Lord, because we remember with each passing service, when we gather around the Lord's Supper, that Jesus said, there's going to come a time when I catch you out of here. The word rapture, per se, is not found in the canon of Scripture. It's really more carefully in our today vernacular understood as the catching away of the saints or the bride of Jesus Christ. And we say that because there's coming a day when the skies will open wide and with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, we're going to be caught away, caught out of here in the twinkling of an eye. And from that point forward, there'll be no more need for a memorial service, a service of remembrance, because we will be in the very presence of our Redeemer. So we don't have to commemorate it. We'll be in presence with Him who is our Redeemer. And we won't have to take the symbol because the literal body will be there with us. The literal blood will be efficacious on the mercy seat applied in the behalf of the believer. And friends, today, understand this. that there's coming a day when none of this will any longer be necessary. I think about what Jesus said concerning fasting when the Jews came and said, John's disciples fasted more than your disciples. What in the world's up with all that? You know, they were trying to make a comparison. And the Lord said, listen, when you have the bridegroom with you, you don't have to fast. And so when we get in the presence of Jesus, there's a lot of things that we do now that we won't ever have to do again, praise the Lord. We won't ever have to shake our mother and spill grape juice all over her skirt in a communion service. We won't ever have to go through many of the things. We won't have to fast and pray because our faith will be sight. We'll be in presence with Him. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. And when we do, there'll be no more need for the communion at the Lord's table, because we'll be in presence with the Lord. Some communion considerations. By now, I hope we understand that those who are eligible to receive the Lord's Supper are those who are saved. I hope we understand that it's an opportunity for us to understand all that Jesus forgave us of. and remind us, in light of His forgiveness, who are we to withhold it from another. And we consider our relationship. And then we consider that He said, I'm coming again. And it excites and it motivates us and gives us a sense of urgency in the work that we do. And I believe that we're living in the days just before the return of the Lord, don't you? In fact, I remember Years ago, I never thought I would see 30. And then I thought I'd never see 40. And I'm sure I will never see 50 because that is light years away. But I am going to tell you this. I'm going to tell you this. His coming is sooner than any of us think. And it could be tonight. Let's pray together. Father God, we thank you for the privilege to be here. Thank you for these considerations from your word. We pray that we would take them into our hearts. Our heads are bowed for just a moment. No one is looking about. Perhaps there's one in the service that would say, you know, Pastor, I'm not certain that my sins are all forgiven and that heaven is my home, but I am concerned about that. I'd like to be sure that I'm on my way to heaven. And if there's one like that tonight, I don't want to embarrass you at all, but I'd like to have the privilege.